Inevitable
by INMH
Summary: After Mary starts coughing, everything this definitely not fine. Implied Character Death and Terminal Illness.


Inevitable  
**Rating:** PG/K+  
**Genre:** Hurt/Comfort/Tragedy/Romance  
**Summary:** For hc_bingo, prompt "Pneumonia". After Mary starts coughing, everything this definitely not fine. Character Death.  
**Author's Note: **Silent Hill 2 was the first Silent Hill game I ever completed. I feel like I should have written something for it long before now.  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own Silent Hill. It belongs to Konami/Vatra.

[-]

Mary started coughing during their vacation in Silent Hill.

"It's just a cold, James." She said, waving a hand dismissively even as she pressed the other to her chest. "Or maybe allergies. This place is old; it might have dust in places they don't think to clean."

James wasn't certain he bought that, because the Lakeview seemed to be fairly impeccable as far as cleanliness went. But Mary had always had allergies, and it _was_ summer, a time when plenty of plants were acting up and the heat had a way of making things worse than they already were. So James nodded and thought _Allergies, just allergies,_ and convinced Mary to lie down for the rest of that day. The next day, she coughed less.

Mary started to have obvious trouble breathing two months later.

"It's probably a cold," Mary sighed when James commented on the slight wheeze coming from her chest when she stepped inside. "I've been a little off since our vacation. My fault for not taking it easy!" She never took it easy: She was a second-grade teacher, and if she wasn't grading, she was planning new and fun lessons for her kids. She loved those kids.

"Maybe you should take tomorrow off?" James suggested gently even though he knew what answer he would get. Mary liked to conserve her sick days, because colds and coughs were not uncommon for her. If she could work through it, he knew she would.

Mary smiled sadly (not really) and shook her head. "I can't. The kids are bringing in butterflies tomorrow, and I know Annie and Max were excited to show me theirs." She kissed James on the forehead and promised she would lie down.

Mary started coughing up blood during dinner one night some months after that.

At first James thought it was the juice from the steak on her plate, but whenever she coughed more joined, and he jumped up from his chair and walked around to her side of the table. "Mary?"

When she was finally able to speak again, Mary sucked in a slow breath and said, "It could-" She cleared her throat. "-it could be bronchitis. Or pneumonia. My father coughed up some blood when he had bronchitis. My mother panicked until the doctor told us otherwise."

That was code for 'Don't worry, James, I'm fine. I'm not dying. There are other reasons for a person to cough up blood. I'm not dying.'

James rubbed slow circles on her back with his left hand and gripped the back of her chair in an iron-clad grip with the right. "I guess we better call the doctor, then."

"In the morning." Mary agreed.

She went, and she shooed James off to work saying that she would be fine, and he reluctantly went to work at the hardware store and waited anxiously for her call.

_Please be not-bad._

_Please be treatable._

_Please don't be fatal_.

Mary called around noon.

"_It's fine, it's pneumonia._" And for all of her confidence that everything would be perfectly okay, Mary sounded awfully relieved. "_I have to get to school, I'll talk to you when I get home. I love you._"

"Love you too." James sighed with his own relief once he hung up the phone.

_It's not bad._

_It's treatable. _

_It's not fatal_.

Somehow, though, he didn't feel one-hundred percent confident in the diagnosis. Something felt wrong. Something felt off.

"The blood?" He asked later that night as they were getting ready for bed.

"Normal."

"What about the coughing? The other breathing problems?"

"Dr. Schafer said that pneumonia can come on slowly." Mary explained as she unbuttoned and removed her sweater. "And besides, for all I know it _was_ allergies over the summer, and a cold a few months back. There's no real way of knowing."

James's confidence got weaker as Mary did. Wasn't medication supposed to make a person feel better? After a month of treatment for the pneumonia, Mary did not seem to be getting better. If anything, she was getting weaker and thinner and paler.

"I suppose the pneumonia is just being tenacious." Mary said with a smile, even as her face was pale and her eyes were red. She coughed and gasped so much it would make her eyes water, and after so many times wiping the tears away it left them red and puffy. "Don't worry- _kff_- sweetheart. Everything's fine."

"I'll call the doctor tomorrow. The medication might not be working as best as it could."

Mary gave a gentle shrug before lowering her head back to the pillow. "If you insist." She fell asleep within minutes.

The doctor didn't seem particularly cheered by Mary's appearance either, and he ordered x-rays for her lungs to see if maybe the pneumonia had gotten worse. The next week was spent in almost a vacuum: Mary was tired, tired enough to call in sick and sleep most of the time (when she wasn't coughing, because that had gotten pretty violent in the meantime), and when James wasn't working, he was sitting quietly on his own and trying not to think.

And when he did think, he thought of the same mantra he had the first time Mary had gone to the doctor:

_Please be not-bad._

_Please be treatable._

_Please don't be fatal_.

And this time, _Please just be pneumonia. Please __**just**__ be pneumonia._

Pneumonia wasn't good, but it was treatable.

And better than some of the alternatives.

The doctor called about eight days after Mary had been x-rayed, and all he would say over the phone was, "Please come in, we have your test results."

James's heart sunk, and part of him Knew.

Mary's smile was weak, and somehow she still managed to have enough optimism to light her eyes. "It's all right, James. Don't worry. Everything will be fine."

Except things aren't fine.  
They wait in the doctor's office, James standing beside her at the window. It was better than sitting down and staring at the doctor's desk, even if it was winter and everything outside was cold and dead. James clasped her hand tightly in his own.

When the door finally opened and Dr. Schafer came in, they saw the look on his face and knew immediately it wasn't good.

And James Knew.

"Not pneumonia?" Mary inquired softly.

"It was pneumonia." Schafer confirmed.

"And now?" James pushed. He glanced to his left, and now he saw that Mary Knew as well.

The light left her eyes so quickly.

"Mr. and Mrs. Sunderland… You should sit down."

-End


End file.
